


A Legendary Partnership

by blueboxesandtrafficcones



Series: Fic Prompts - Broadchurch [6]
Category: Broadchurch
Genre: Developing Relationship, F/M, Late Night Conversations, talking on the beach
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-24
Updated: 2020-01-24
Packaged: 2021-02-27 05:21:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,514
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22381756
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blueboxesandtrafficcones/pseuds/blueboxesandtrafficcones
Summary: Now that Daisy’s graduated and preparing to go to uni, Hardy must contemplate his future.  Miller provides the answer.  Of course, if it was straightforward it wouldn’t be them.Or: A conversation is finally had.
Relationships: Alec Hardy/Ellie Miller
Series: Fic Prompts - Broadchurch [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/970344
Comments: 12
Kudos: 128





	A Legendary Partnership

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted to Tumblr October 2018.
> 
> Thanks for reading!

She found him sitting on the beach of all places, nursing a beer and staring out at the ocean.

“Here,” she brusquely announced her presence, handing him the plate before plopping down on the sand next to him.

“I can’t eat this,” Hardy said blankly, staring down at the piece of cake she’d given him as though it were a ticking bomb.

“I know, it’s for me,” Ellie cheerfully replied, taking it back and digging in with relish. Partially because it was so good but mostly for fun she moaned every few bites, smirking as his ears turned red in the fading light.

“What are you doing, Miller,” he sighed, watching jealously as she devoured the slice.

“Watching the sunset and keeping you company while you brood,” she said around a mouthful of cake, giving him a knowing look.

“I’m not brooding,” he muttered, turning back to face the fading sun.

Ellie rolled her eyes. “Sure, you’re just sitting here glaring at a gorgeous sunset for no reason,” she countered sarcastically. “I see the difference.”

“You’d have a lot more fun at the party.” He gestured vaguely towards his house. “All your friends are there.”

“One, they’re your friends too,” she pointed her fork at him, the last bite of cake speared on the end. “And two – well, I’d rather be here with you.” Ellie shoved the last bite into her mouth then, sighing with delight. “By the way, this was amazing. Where’d you get it?”

“I made it.” Hardy smirked at her obvious surprise, as she stared at him, stunned.

“You’re kidding me!”

He shook his head, leaning back on his hands. “Well, Daisy helped, but it was more ‘here hand me that’ kind of help.”

“I didn’t know you could bake!” She gazed thoughtfully at the few remaining crumbs, seeing them in a new light. “You should bake for the station.”

Hardy laughed freely at that, and the sound made her smile. “And that’s exactly why I’ve never said.”

They sat together in comfortable silence, watching as the sun sank below the horizon and stars began to appear.

“I’m going to miss her,” he finally admitted very quietly, letting the wind snatch his words away.

“I know. We all are, especially poor Fred. She was a great childminder. But she doesn’t leave until the end of the summer, right?”

“Late September,” he confirmed, sighing. “Still.”

She patted his hand in sympathy and to her surprise he took it, lacing their fingers together. Ellie sent him a wide-eyed look, but he continued staring out to sea and she kept quiet, thumb idly rubbing at the base of his. It was nice.

Different, but nice.

“I like this,” he eventually murmured.

“Sitting on the beach? Well you’ve changed,” she quipped, and could almost hear him roll his eyes.

“No, Miller. _This_ ,” he repeated, squeezing her hand for emphasis.

“Oh!” she exclaimed softly, slightly stunned. When she didn’t say anything else he tensed, before trying to separate their hands. “Me too,” she blurted, holding on tightly.

Hardy finally turned to face her, his disbelief clear. “Really?”

“Really,” she told him firmly, realizing as she spoke how true it was.

A shy smile spread across his face, and it occurred to Ellie that he was almost handsome that way, brown eyes sparkling in the moonlight.

“Do you ever-” Hardy stopped abruptly, jaw clicking shut as he stared out to sea again.

She gave him a moment, but when he didn’t speak she dared to scoot a little closer and rest her head on his shoulder. “Do I ever what?”

He moved, and she could picture the surprise on his face as he looked down at her, but she kept her eyes on the slowly-encroaching tide. “Do you ever…” The sentence trailed off again, and he grunted slightly in frustration.

“Hardy, what?”

She tensed at an unexpected pressure against the top of her head, and it took a moment to realize it was his lips; his breath against her scalp was a surprisingly pleasant puff of air.

“Do you ever wonder if we could be more?”

Rejecting six different snarks about how she’d be a DI instead of still a DS if he hadn’t shown up and stolen the job, she settled for, “In what sense?”

“Never mind.” He sighed deeply, and her head moved with his chest.

“Sometimes.” It was barely a whisper, but Hardy heard it.

“Don’t toy with me, Miller.”

Straightening up, she pulled her knees into her chest and began drawing nonsense in the sand. “I mean, I’d never thought of it until the trial, until they accused us of it. I wondered- well, obsessed, really, over it for a while, partially as a distraction from everything else going on. But then you left.” Hand stilling, she laid it flat between them. “You left, and I… realized, or maybe decided, that anything one might have considered evidence was really just heat of the moment.”

“That’s why I left.” Ellie’s head jerked up but he had laid back in the sand, hands folded behind his head as he watched the stars appear. “I thought I might be- that it was just everything coming together and I was latching onto the only person who had any modicum of faith in me. That’s why I didn’t keep in touch. I figured it would fade, with time. And distance.”

Stretching out herself, she found that it was easier to speak to the sky instead of his face. “Did it?”

Hardy was silent a long time, until the sky had turned black and the stars shined brightly. “I’m here, aren’t I?”

“I don’t trust anymore,” Ellie said abruptly. “After- well, after everything, the list of people I genuinely trust is basically nonexistent. My therapist, she took me through a series of scenarios and asked me who I would trust in each of them. There were very, very few in which you were not alone on the list.”

“Well, we’re a suspicious pair aren’t we?” And, absurdly, Hardy began to laugh; after a moment, she joined in.

“We should solve crimes or something,” she teased.

“What, like Starsky and Hutch?”

“I was thinking Turner and Hooch,” Ellie smiled, rolling onto her stomach and propping herself up on her forearms to look down at him. “You’re the dog, obviously.”

“I’d prefer to think you’re the Watson to my Holmes,” Hardy shot right back with a smirk.

She pretended to consider for a moment, scrunching up her face. “Nah, you’re not arrogant enough.”

“Thank you?”

They laughed softly, falling silent as they listened to the world around them. There was the faintest thumping of bass come from his house above them, but it was mostly the light whistling of wind and the tide coming in.

“Do you want to find out?”

“If you’re arrogant?” Ellie crinkled her nose. “I mean, you can be, but nowhere near that level.”

“Ellie…” His smile had faded, and the darkness made his gaze seem so much more intense.

“Why? Why do you want me?” She began to draw in the sand again, just for something to do.

Hardy sat up, a surprisingly vulnerable look on his face. It was a struggle not to start cracking jokes in the face of something so potentially life altering, as was her wont. “Because of the way I feel when I’m with you,” he said simply. “I’ve never felt like that before.”

“Like what?” Rolling on her back she sat up as well, shifting in the sand to face him. He turned too, and it felt rather absurdly like there was a line between them; he’d begun to toe it, but it hadn’t been crossed.

Not yet.

“Accepted.”

It was an unexpected answer, and her heart ached suddenly for the child he once had been.

“Accepted as I am,” he continued, and it wasn’t a woe-is-me tone; he gave it as fact. “I am who I am, and you don’t try to change that. I can tell you things I’ve never told a living soul, and you may tease but you still… you don’t try to change me, instead work with me through my… oddities, I suppose.”

A white-hot rage burned through her so suddenly, it took a moment to recognize the cause. He was saying that how she treated him, with basic human dignity and respect, was entirely foreign – and she put that entirely down to Tess.

How he’d worshiped that woman, once upon a time – it had been more than obvious in their interactions during the reopening of Sandbrook. No matter how she’d felt when he first arrived, even then she’d have said he deserved better.

A realization hit her like a bolt of lightning then, such a simple truth that she’d already known on some level but refused to acknowledge lit up like a firework.

She wanted to be the one to make him happy.

“Yes.”

“Yes?” Hardy repeated, brow furrowing in confusion as he stared at her, hope appearing on his face like the first rays of the sun, just before dawn.

“Let’s find out.”


End file.
